


lay me gently in the cold dark earth

by HuiLian



Series: Batman Bingo 2020 [4]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Discussion of killing, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Suicidal Thoughts, YeetDC2020, dark future, minimal editing we die like mne, oh my god so much angst i'm so sorry, other characters to be added - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:14:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25899508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HuiLian/pseuds/HuiLian
Summary: Damian shakes his head. He can’t take it. He can’t take Richard hugging him, saying his name like it's the most precious thing that ever passes Richard’s mouth. Not when he knows what he’s about to say next.But Damian has decided that he wants to be selfish. Just for now. Just before Richard figures out what he comes here to say and casts him away forever. He lets Richard hug him for another few seconds, all the while knowing that he is not deserving of it.In a dark future, Damian is forced to kill Dick.NOW TURNING INTO A MULTICHAPTER FIC
Relationships: Cassandra Cain & Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne, Jason Todd & Damian Wayne
Series: Batman Bingo 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1821709
Comments: 32
Kudos: 205





	1. when my time comes around

**Author's Note:**

> sorry? 
> 
> for batman bingo 2020, prompt: please just kill me  
> title is, again, from hozier

Damian glares at the guard in front of the cell, channeling the heir to the League of Assassin that he was, years and years ago, and was recently reminded of. The guard doesn’t stand a chance. After a few seconds, he bows and lets Damian pass. 

Damian extends his hands, asking for the key to the cell. The guard hands it over and he opens the lock. His hands do not tremble as he does it. 

They do not. 

When he swings over the door, the smell hits him first. The stench of a putrid wound, followed by human excrement. It is overwhelming. 

Damian almost doesn’t dare raise his eyes and sees the man he knows is lying on the threadbare cot inside the cell, but he owes it to him. He owes it to Richard. 

The sight is even worse than the smell. Richard’s skin, once a beautiful tan, is now pale and his hair looks brittle, even from where Damian is standing. However, the worst sight of all is the bandage covering Richard’s abdomen. 

It is completely soaked in blood. 

Damian’s heart  _ burns _ . He closes the door. 

Richard doesn’t even turn towards him. “What do you want, Slade?” he asks. His voice is scratchy, as if he had been screaming. 

Damian wants, more than anything, to just launch himself into his big brother’s arms. He wants to just dump his problems into Richard’s hands, just like he had years and years and years ago. 

How selfish of him. What are his problems, compared to Richard’s?

Damian rustles his robes and takes out the little box he hides deep within his robes. It’s a device to loop the feeds, both visual and audio, from this room. He turns it on. He doesn’t dare do anything else before he has done that. 

Here, the walls are listening. The ceilings are watching. 

He repockets the looper and says, “Richard, it’s me.”

Richard doesn’t even stir. “Don’t waste your time, Slade,” he spits out. “I won’t fall for the same trick twice.”

Damian feels his blood boils. Did they use him to hurt Richard?

And then, as quick as it came, the anger turns to self-loathing.  _ He _ is also going to hurt Richard, and he is using himself. It is far more abominable.

He steps closer to the cot and takes Richard’s hands in his own. Then, he falls to his knees. 

Damian has thought about this moment countless times from the very second he discovers that Richard is here in this compound. He has practiced again and again the words he would use to beg Richard’s forgiveness. Because what kind of brother is he, to be safe and live in comparable luxury inside this compound, while his family suffers outside?

While  _ Richard _ suffers outside.

And that’s not even the worst thing Damian has to say to Richard. He cannot imagine how he would say that, much less actually  _ say _ it to Richard.

Damian opens his mouth, meaning to say the words he had prepared, but what comes out is, “No, Richard.” Damian squeezes Richard’s hands gently. Very, very gently. His older brother has experienced violence too many times. Damian will not add more. 

Not now, anyway.

“This is not a trick,” Damian finishes.

He doesn’t know what he would do if Richard doesn’t believe him. Thankfully, he doesn’t have to find out. That simple sentence got Richard to turn his head. His eyes meet Damian’s for a second before Damian can’t take it anymore. Damian averts his eyes. He missed those eyes, he really does, but he can’t bear to look at Richard in the eye. Not with what they want him to do to Richard. 

Not with what Damian is going to do to him. 

Fingers dance softly on Damian’s cheek, coaxing him to look back up. Damian doesn’t move. He doesn’t deserve to look at Richard in the eye.

Eventually, the fingers stop. Has Richard figured out what Damian is going to say? Is that why he pulls his hand back? 

But, before Damian can dwell in sorrow, Richard asks softly, “Is it really you?”

Damian closes his eyes and nods. 

Richard gasps and pulls him into his arms, the way Damian wants to earlier but doesn’t dare to. Damian knows he’s going to berate himself for this later, but he decides that he wants to be selfish, despite not being deserving of it, and rests his head on Richard’s shoulders.

Richard’s shoulders have turned so very thin, so very different from Damian’s own broad shoulders. It highlights even further what a terrible brother he is. 

“Damian,” Richard breathes out, as if Damian’s name is the most valuable thing on earth. “Damian.”

Damian shakes his head. He can’t take it. He can’t take Richard hugging him, saying his name like it's the most precious thing that ever passes Richard’s mouth. Not when he knows what he’s about to say next. 

But Damian has decided that he wants to be selfish. Just for now. Just before Richard figures out what he comes here to say and casts him away forever. He lets Richard hug him for another few seconds, all the while knowing that he is not deserving of it. 

He wants to stay there forever. He wants to never let go. But he knows he can’t. 

The effort it takes to pull himself out of Richard’s embrace is the most he has ever exerted himself. More than it takes to win a match with Grandfather, more than it takes to cross the desert with just the clothes on his back, more than it takes to leave Richard for the first time. 

But he does, eventually. 

Richard lets him go. Richard  _ always _ lets him go. 

Damian opens his mouth, trying to force the words out, but he can’t. He can’t. The words are chained to his tongue. 

Damian sits back on his knees and buries his head on Richard’s legs, trying to ground himself. He knows how egotistical he is being, seeking comfort from Richard when  _ he _ should be the one comforting him. 

He knows how greedy he is, how unworthy he is of Richard’s comforts, how lucky he is that Richard even allows him to be here, but Richard’s hands still find his head.

Richard’s hands still stroke his hair. 

“Damian,” Richard whispers, “what is it?”

Richard knows. Of course he does. Damian never succeeds in hiding anything for long from him. 

“I…” Damian starts. “They…” He swallows and tries again. “There is something I need to tell you.”

Richard hums, waiting. 

Damian buries his head even further on Richard’s legs. Maybe his words will be muffled enough that Richard can’t hear it. 

Damian breathes in, and, before he can lose his courage, he says, as fast as he can, “They want me to kill you.”

One heartbeat. Two. Damian doesn’t dare move from his place on Richard’s legs. 

But then, a firm hand clasps his shoulders and pulls him up. It forces him to raise his head and meet Richard’s eyes. 

“Who?” Richard asks, not perturbed in the least from the revelation that Damian is going to kill him. 

“The League,” Damian says. “Grandfather. The entire Society.” Once he starts, he can’t stop. Words he had held inside for so long bursts out. “They want me to kill you, to prove my loyalty to them. They said it’s the only way they can truly know where my loyalties lay, and thus whether or not I deserve to live, and Mother can’t keep them away any longer. They mean for me to kill you tomorrow.” Damian shakes his head. “I can’t do it. I can’t do it, Richard. I know you told me to do whatever they want me to do to stay alive, but I can’t do it.” The moment the words got out of his mouth, Damian realizes it’s the truth. He can’t kill Richard. He can’t even  _ comprehend  _ killing Richard. 

Richard blinks. “To stay alive, you say?”

Damian continues to shake his head. “No, no, I can’t do it.” Without even realizing it, tears had fallen down his face. “Don’t ask me to do it, Richard. Please don’t. I can’t do it.”

Richard's gentle hands wipe his tears away. He says, “Damian, darling,” as kindly as he did years and years ago, when he promises to Damian the beginning all the way to the end. Well, this is the end, because Damian refuses to kill him and so he will die with him. A death well-spent, in Damian’s opinion. 

Richard seems to disagree, though, because he continues, “Please just do it. Please just kill me.”

Damian's entire body screams. Richard's words cause more pain than arrows, gunshots, broken bones, and all of them at once. Damian wants to weep, to scream out protests after protests, but he knows he can't. Just because the cameras are out doesn't mean that no one is listening. 

He settles with burying his head in Richard's legs again. "Don't make me do it," he begs, voice breaking. "Please don't make me do it."

Richard doesn't pull him up again. Instead, he pulls himself to a sitting position and repositions Damian's head so that now it is in his lap, despite the pain it must have caused him.

Damian doesn’t deserve this. He shouldn’t be on Richard’s lap. He should be kissing Richard’s feet, begging for forgiveness.

"Damian," Richard says, still in that soft and gentle voice. "Dami. Little brother."

Damian can't take it anymore. He's not worthy of this, not worthy of Richard's loving voice and his kind touch. He wasn’t, not when he was a boy of ten, and he isn’t now. 

Especially now. 

"You're going to  _ live _ ," Richard says, holding Damian’s head. "You're going to live."

Damian raises his hand, trying to find Richard’s. What good is him living if the cost of it is Richard’s life?

He finds Richard’s hands and holds it tightly. "Please don't make me do it,” Damian sobs. “I won't. I  _ can't.  _ I would do  _ anything _ for you, Richard, but that. Not that. Don't ask me to do that."

"You promised, little brother."

He did. He did promise. But he didn't expect that they would ask him to do  _ this _ . 

"Not this. Anything but this."

"Damian,” Richard breathes out. “ _ Whatever _ they want you to do. Even this."

"No."

"Yes. Please. For me."

"No,” Damian hisses. “They don't want me to just  _ kill _ you, Richard. They're going to have me  _ torture _ you.” Grandfather hasn’t said anything about  _ how _ Damian should kill Richard, only that he should, but Damian knows. How else would they have him do it? “They're going to have me kill you in the most painful way possible. I can't do it."

"Yes, you can,” Richard says, as if they were back in the Bunker, years and years ago, and he is encouraging Damian to try a move. The memory  _ hurts _ . “I'm giving you permission to do it. I'm  _ asking _ you to do it."

Damian just shakes his head again. "I can't."

"Then just… just pretend it's not me. Just pretend I'm someone else." 

“How am I supposed to do that, Richard? And I can’t. I won’t. I refuse to do it. So it doesn’t matter whether I pretend it is you or Grandfather or some nameless schmuck. I won’t do it.”

“Damian. You’re going to have to do it.”

“No. I can just die.” And that’s the truth. He will rather die than raise a hand against Richard.

“I won’t allow that.” Richard’s voice, which was so soft and gentle before, changes into the hard and determined voice he used to wear on patrol. Into the voice Damian will forever associate as Batman. “I’ll put the knife in your hands myself and guide them inside me if it comes to that.”

“Richard-”

“No. You’re not going to die.” Richard pulls Damian back up again and looks into his eyes with the solemnest expression he has ever worn. “You’re not going to die.” 

Then, the solemn expression turns gentle. Richard brings Damian’s head closer to his and kisses his temple. 

The gesture brings memories of happier times, and for a moment, Damian is happy. For a moment, he imagines himself in the Penthouse, spending the night with Richard, each reading their own book. For a moment, he imagines himself patrolling the streets of Gotham with Richard next to him. For a moment, he imagines himself with Richard, both of them safe and sound and not in this absolute nightmare of a compound. 

Then, Damian wakes up, and he hates himself for daring to imagine that. 

Richard lets go of his face and says, “You’re not going to die, Damian, you hear me? You’re not going to die.”

And well, who is he to argue against Richard? Damian swallows and then, after a moment, nods. 

Richard smiles. 

Damian does not. 


	2. what my hands and my body done

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote the fic to yeet the idea from my head. But apparently, it decided to take permanent residence there. this is the result. sorry for this mess of words, i just need it OUT of my head.
> 
> CW: suicidal ideation. Damian is in a really bad place here, and even though I didn't write it to be on the forefront of everything, Damian does have suicidal ideation here. PLEASE DON'T READ IF IT CAN TRIGGER YOU. 
> 
> title of the chapter from hozier. It's the same song as the title of the fic!

Damian lays his sword on the ground, in the centre of all his laid out weapons, and kneels behind it.

They have come. Of course they have.

Thoughts roll around Damian’s head. Why couldn't they have come five days ago, before the Society had ordered him to kill Richard? Why couldn't they have come three days ago, before he laid the first cut onto Richard's body?

Why, why couldn't they have come yesterday, before he couldn't take another second of that knife in his hands and decided to end it?

But they have come now. They have come now and Damian… Damian doesn't know what to tell them.

He knows they are coming from the moment he hears the tell-tale sound of the Batplane, obvious only to someone who has spent years listening to it. He didn’t tell anyone in the compound. He may have to do their bidding, but he is not going to warn them of his family coming.

Who will it be, Damian wonders. Will it be Father, with his determination to save everyone? Or maybe Jason, who is always the first to take vengeance over any slight to him and to people he cared about. Or maybe Cassandra, or Timothy, or Duke. Maybe even Stephanie.

Whoever it is, they must have come because of Richard. They must have heard that Richard is in the compound and rushed to save him.

It can’t be because of Damian. He has been in this compound for months. No one has come for him.

Well, except for Richard.

Maybe that’s for the best. Richard came for him, and he died.

He died.

Damian shakes his head. Focus. They must have come because of Richard, and Damian… Damian doesn’t know what to tell them. What would they react to seeing him? What would they do when he tells them that he has killed Richard?

He doesn’t even know what he would do.

He wants to ask for forgiveness, but he knows that what he has done is unforgivable. He wants to beg for absolution, but he knows that there is no power high enough to absolve him of that.

Damian wants his dad to fix this, but he knows that is impossible. Even Batman can’t turn back time.

(Which Batman Damian is referring to, even he doesn’t know.)

So he kneels in his room and he waits. He waits until he sees the signal that orders every member of the compound to come out and fight, and ignores it. He is not listening to the Society anymore.

He waits until his legs scream in discomfort, and ignores that too. What is his discomfort compared to what he has done?

He deserves this. This and so much more.

He waits until the glint of the weapons laying on the ground seem so appealing. There is no absolution waiting for him. Maybe he should just do it himself. No need to wait for his family to get him.

The sound of his door being kicked open brings Damian out of his trance. The sight of a cracked red helmet follows.

It’s Jason after all.

Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe Jason can be persuaded to kill him.

Before Damian can open his mouth to beg--a voice, deep within him, mocks him for his weakness--, Jason says, “Damian?!”

Damian closes his eyes and nods. He doesn’t want to know what Jason will do next.

(He desperately wants to know what Jason will do next.)

A thud that must be the helmet hitting the ground, and then the sound of boots stomping down on metal. Maybe Jason will use one of Damian’s own weapons to end him. It would be fitting.

Damian waits for a blade to slice his throat, to come down on his chest, to stab his femoral artery, but it never came. What comes instead is gloved hands and arms clad in leather, engulfing him in a hug.

Damian can’t breathe. He doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve this.

“You’re here. You’re here. You’re safe. I can’t believe we found you,” Jason rambles from above him.

Damian wants to open his mouth, wants to scream that his hands had killed Richard, wants to cry, but he can’t. The only thing he can do is clutch to Jason’s body even tighter.

(Is it selfish of him that he wishes it is not Jason in front of him, but Richard?

It is. How abhorrent of him.)

“You’re here,” Jason repeats again. “You’re here.”

Damian nods from his place in Jason’s shoulder. It will come. The question will come.

“Have you seen Dick?”

There it is.

Damian takes a deep breath and peels himself away from Jason’s embrace. He can’t bear saying it while his brother is hugging him.

(He can’t bear saying it at all.)

“I…” Damian begins. “I…” He can’t say it.

He has to say it.

So Damian pulls every single ounce of training he has in his body, and forces out the words, “I killed him.”

Silence. Damian waits for the inevitable condemnation. In what form, he doesn’t know yet, but the condemnation will come.

It will.

“What did you say, Damian?” Jason asks.

There it is.

“What did you say?” Jason repeats.

“I killed him,” Damian whispers. He remembers the feeling of a knife on his hands, the sight of Richard’s wan smile throughout the entire ordeal, and somehow, the texture of the rope binding Richard. The memory brings on a new bout of loathing.

Jason frowns. “I don’t believe you,” he says.

Why? Why do all his family seem to want to think more highly of Damian than he can think of himself? Richard does-. No. Richard did, and look where it got him.

Dead. By Damian’s hands.

“What is there not to believe?” Damian spits out. He has to make Jason understand. He’s unredeemable, and they might as well cut their losses. He has wasted enough of their time trying to reform him. He’s a killer, and will always be a killer. He has killed the first person to ever believe in him, to ever trust him, to ever love him completely. If he has done that, if he is capable of doing that, how could they ever believe that he isn’t going to kill anyone else?

“I killed him. I put a knife through his chest and killed him.” Damian looks into Jason’s eyes and wills himself to say it. “I killed him with my own hands. Now take your vengeance, Todd.”

Jason stays silent, the frown getting deeper and deeper.

Damian forces himself to not look down.

Finally, Jason breaks the silence. “See,” he says, “I can’t believe you killed Dick. Not on your own volition, anyway. They must have forced you into it.”

Dick forced Damian to do it. Dick practically begged Damian to do it. But it’s because he wants to save Damian.

And Damian? Damian doesn’t deserve to be saved.

“What did it matter?” he asks. “I killed him anyway.”

Jason’s eyes turn knowing. “They forced you, didn’t they?” he says.

Damian swallows. It’s his saving grace, he knows. He can just say yes, and everything will be alright. Jason will take him home, and the rest of the family, or what’s left of it anyway, will make everything alright again.

Dick is dead. Nothing will be alright ever again.

He doesn’t want to say yes. He doesn’t deserve that saving grace.

Dick would have done better. Father would have done better. Heck, Jason would have done better than Damian did in that situation. Jason would have found a way to keep Dick alive.

He doesn’t deserve to be redeemed. He should say no. He should decline that saving grace and face the consequences.

But Damian can’t lie to that knowing eyes. How strange it is, that he finds it harder to lie to his family now, almost a man in his own right and fully trained, than it is at ten.

Dick would say that it’s because he cares about his family now. (But Dick is dead, and so he will never say anything ever again.)

Damian breathes out, and says, “They ordered me.” It’s a compromise he will settle on. It’s not lying, not really, but damning enough if Jason decides to do it.

But of course, Jason knows exactly what he meant. He nods and says, “They forced you.”

The confident way Jason said it makes Damian snap. Why do they insist in believing the best in him?

He is the sum of all his worst qualities. Why can’t they see that?

Why can’t they believe that?

“I could’ve said no!” Damian yells. “I should have said no, and you know it, Todd! So just do it! Take your vengeance and leave!”

“No,” Jason says, calm in a way Damian has never seen before. “I know you, and I know Dick. There’s nothing you could have done.”

And somehow, with those words, Damian breaks. There is nothing he could have done. There is nothing he could have done.

Damian curls in on himself, putting his head on his bent knees. He feels the tears flow from his eyes and lets it flow. There is nothing he could have done. There is nothing he could have done.

Jason doesn’t come closer. He doesn’t pull Damian into another hug, he doesn’t touch Damian anywhere. He doesn’t say anything. He just let Damian cry.

Grief. Regret. Pain. The aching on his heart. Damian lets it all out.

Jason sits there through it all, close enough to Damian for comfort but not close enough to be overbearing. Damian is grateful that he doesn’t try to touch him.

He’s never going to feel Dick’s hand on his shoulders again. He’s never going to feel Dick’s fingers carding through his hair. He’s never going to feel Dick’s arms going around and around and around him, encompassing him in warmth and affection and love.

When the tears slow, Jason finally moves closer to Damian and strokes his back. He does that for a moment, before he says, “Let’s go home, yeah, kid?”

Damian feels another tear fall. He watches it’s trajectory, going down the sleek material of his clothing, down his thigh, around his knee, and towards the closest of his weapons. It flows down the blade, with a direct path to the floor of his room.

The moment that tears makes contact with the floor, Damian nods. He’s going home.

He’s going home.

(Dick will never go home.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i might write more in this dark au. but all of them are going to be this kind of one shot-ish thing, just set in the same universe.  
> (no cliffhangers here. Unlike noctuis. if you're reading noctuis, sorry for all the cliffhangers!)
> 
> as usual, kudos and comments fuel me!


	3. she never asked me once about the wrongs i did

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so! this is now a multichapter fic i don't even know. Each chapter is going to be each siblings' reaction to this, so here we go! enjoy!

Damian is not surprised to see Cassandra. He knows that Jason must bring someone else with him, because Jason waited for him to come without even a word of complaint. He is not surprised to see Cassandra. 

_Cassandra_ is surprised to see him. He can see the surprise written in her face, and then, he can also see the moment she _sees_ him, and knows what he has done. 

There is surprise there too, but this surprise is quickly tucked away, filed on for later examination. Damian doesn’t know whether he is grateful that Cassandra still believes in him enough to be surprised at what he could do, what he _has done_ , or if he is still clinging to that bitterness that everyone in his family seems to believe the best of him. 

He decides to feel neither. He doesn’t have anything left inside of him to feel anything. 

Somewhere above him, Damian senses Jason’s nod to Cassandra and then he says, “We need to go.” Jason himself has his arms around Damian, and is half-dragging him along the path out of the compound.

More self-loathing blooms inside him. Is he that useless, that he has to be dragged out of this hell? 

He is. He is useless.

No. He’s _worse_ than useless. 

From the side of his eyes, Damian sees Cassandra nod, and then cleanly take out two of the fighters next to her. Then, she dodges the cacophony of weapons and limbs and reaches the two of them. 

She doesn’t ask where Richard is. She doesn’t have to. 

Jason neatly transfers Damian to Cassandra’s arms, and some part of Damian is furious about the indignity of it all, but mostly, Damian just goes where Jason’s, and then Cassandra’s, gentle hands tell him to go. 

He doesn’t deserve the kindness, but he takes it all the same. That seems to be the only thing he is good for. 

Taking. 

Cassandra is shorter than Jason, shorter than Damian himself, so Damian is bent over her. It must be hindering her ability to fight, but she doesn’t seem the little bit fazed. She manages to get them to the plane she and Jason must have used to get here, but Damian cannot tell _how_ she got them there. 

He doesn’t care really. The only reason he isn’t dropping to his knees in the middle of the courtyard with every single weapon aimed at the two of them is because he will not be bringing Cassandra with him. If he were alone, he wouldn’t have taken another step. 

The plane is already up and running--that’s why Jason turned Damian over to Cassandra--so it’s a simple matter of boarding and closing the door before they are off. And not a moment too soon, because the moment they lift off, Damian can see the reinforcements coming. 

It hits him then, that he is leaving. He has spent _months_ inside that compound, and now he is leaving.

But the moment that that hits him, Damian realizes that it’s not just the compound that he is leaving. He is also leaving Dick. 

Or rather, Dick’s body.

He knows that it doesn’t matter, not truly. Dead is dead, and even if he somehow managed to recover the body, there couldn’t be anything to be done with it except bury it. Lazarus Pits are getting scarcer by the minute, and even if he could find one that Grandfather isn’t guarding obsessively, Dick wouldn’t want that. 

Maybe it _is_ a blessing that they cannot bring the body with them. Dick wouldn’t have wanted the rest of them to see him like that, because by the end of it all, Dick had been unrecognizable. He didn’t even look human.

He certainly didn’t look like the man who had taken care of Damian, who had brought him in and sheltered him and _loved_ him. 

It was Damian’s hands that did that. What right does he have to think about what Dick would want?

Gentle hands caress his cheek, swiping away the tears. Damian didn’t even know he had any more tears _left_ in him. Cassandra has crouched in front of him, holding his face between her hands. She knows. She must have. She knows from the moment she laid her eyes on Damian, and now she would give her judgement. 

Just because Jason hadn’t seen fit to end him doesn’t mean that the rest of them wouldn’t too.

Cassandra is _good_. She realizes early on how much pain she could give to people, and decides to stop doing it. She is _good_ , and so much unlike Damian, who had to be guided step by excruciating step away from that path, and even then, it didn’t stick. 

He had killed the man who had given him so much of his time and effort and heart. Damian would accept Cassandra’s judgement, whatever it is. 

“Bruce,” Cassandra says, softly.

Damian feels his eyebrows coming in a frown. Is she telling him that Father would be disappointed in him? 

“Alfred,” she continues. “Babs.”

Damian takes a sharp breath in. He knows what she’s doing, and he doesn’t want to hear it. “No,” he breathes out, shaking his head. He doesn’t want to hear it. _He doesn’t want to hear it._

Cassandra trudges on, keeping Damian’s face between her hands. “Dick,” she finishes, looking at him in the eyes.

A litany of names that they have lost. And the last, by Damian’s own hands. 

“No,” Damian chokes out. “He doesn’t…”

“I know, Damian,” Cassandra says, lifting one of her hands up to brush his hair, in an echo of what Dick had done, in those last few moments in his cell. The gesture is meant to comfort him, but he sees Dick on top of Cassandra and the tears come anew. 

Cassandra lets him cry. She moves as if to hold him throughout his tears, but she stops at the very last moment. If Damian had any guilt left to spare, he would feel guilty about this, because Cassandra means well, she is just trying to help, but this is something that Damian doesn’t _want_ to be comforted about. 

He deserves this pain, and so much more besides. Why can’t they see that?

“He still loves you,” Cassandra says, when all the tears that’s left inside Damian have been cried away, “you know that, right?”

Yes, Damian does know that. And look where that brought him. 

“He shouldn’t have,” Damian sobs.

“He still loves you,” Cassandra repeats, “and so do we.”

“You shouldn’t have.”

Cassandra sighs, and rises up from her crouch to press a kiss on Damian’s forehead. He should protest, should tell her that he doesn’t deserve even an ounce of affection from them, but he doesn’t have anything left inside him to protest. Her lips linger on Damian’s skin, before finally, she says, “That’s not for you to decide, Damian.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you're thinking that everyone seems so forgiving and accepting, well, shall i just say that the next chapter is going to be.... different. 
> 
> see you all next time!

**Author's Note:**

> check out my tumblr [ here ](huilian.tumblr.com) (huilian.tumblr.com)
> 
> kudos and comments make my day!!!!!!


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